Sport fishing is a very popular sport enjoyed by many millions of people. Typically, often as dictated by local laws, sport fishing involves the use of a device such as a fishing rod with a hook on the end of a fishing line as opposed to a large net that might be used in commercial fishing. In order to lure fish to the hook, either live bait, such as minnows or worms, is used, or alternatively artificial bait, such as a colourful metal and/or plastic lure is used. Many fisherman consider live bait to be superior over lures in attracting fish, especially in certain circumstances or for attracting particular fish. The main reasons for this is that the live bait moves within the water and is therefore more readily noticed by the fish, and moreover that the live bait being used is typically a natural food for fish.
The problem with live bait, however, is that it needs to be kept in a suitable environment in order survive, from the time of purchase until it is used on the fishing hook. In the case of minnows, the minnows must be kept in sufficiently oxygenated water for a period of perhaps several hours. Typically, minnows are purchased at a fishing supply outlet and must be transported to the fishing site, which may be several hours drive away. Further, the minnows must remain alive while at the fishing site, which could also cover a time period of several hours.
Presently, the most common form of receiving live minnows, if the minnows are to be transported a long distance, is a suitable plastic bag tied-off at the top and partially filled with water. At a large number of fishing supply outlets, a supply of oxygen (O.sub.2) in the form of a cylinder with compressed O.sub.2 therein, is pumped into the plastic bag in order to create a volume of gaseous oxygen above the water, thus providing a free oxygen supply for the minnows. The closed plastic bag is intended to preclude the oxygen from escaping. Once the oxygen that is dissolved in the water starts to run out, the minnows by instinct go to the surface of the water and start to gulp from the free oxygen supply in order to ingest the needed oxygen. Overall, it has been found that this above described manner allows minnows to live for many hours, depending on the number of minnows per given volume of water and so on. Unfortunately, as soon as the bag is unsealed and opened to the atmosphere, the free oxygen supply is no longer available to the minnows. The minnows must then rely on whatever oxygen must remain in the water or on a fresh supply of water.
What is needed is a way to keep a supply of oxygen available to the minnows without having to carry around a supplementary supply of compressed oxygen.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved minnow container that makes available a source of oxygen (O.sub.2) to live minnows in water within the container.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a separate chamber member that allows an existing bucket, cooler, or other suitable carrying apparatus to be adapted into an improved minnow container that makes available a source of oxygen (O.sub.2) to live minnows in water within the container.